1803: Second Anglo-Maratha war results in British Christian capture of Delhi and control of large parts of India.
1803: India's population is 200 million.
1803-82: Lifetime of Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet who helps popularize Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads in US.
1807: Importation of slaves is banned in the US through an act of Congress motivated by Thomas Jefferson.
1809: British strike a bargain with Ranjit Singh for exclusive areas of influence.
ca 1810-75: Lifetime of renaissance guru Kadaitswami, born near Bangalore, sent to Sri Lanka by Rishi from the Himalayas to strengthen Saivism against Catholic incursion.
1812: Napoleon's army retreats from Moscow. Only 20,000 soldiers survive out of a 500,000-man invasion force.
1814: First practical steam locomotive is built.
1817-92: Lifetime of Bahaullah, Mirza Husayn 'Ali, founder of Baha'i faith (1863), a major off-shoot religion of Islam.
1818-78: Lifetime of Sivadayal, renaissance founder of the esoteric reformist Radhasoami Vaishnava sect in Agra.
1820: First Indian immigrants arrive in the US.
1822-79: Life of Arumuga Navalar of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, renaissance activist who propounds Advaita Siddhanta, writes first Hindu catechism and translates Bible into Tamil so it can be compared faithfully to the Vedas and Agamas.
1823-74: Life of Ramalingaswami, Tamil saint, renaissance founder of Vadalur's "Hall of Wisdom for Universal Worship."
1824-83: Lifetime of Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, renaissance founder of Arya Samaj (1875), Hindu reformist movement stressing a return to the values and practices of the Vedas. Author of Satya Prakash, "Light on Truth."
1825: First massive immigration of Indian workers from Madras is to Reunion and Mauritius. This immigrant Hindu community builds their first temple in 1854.
1828: Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) founds Adi Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta, first movement to initiate religio-social reform. Influenced by Islam and Christianity, he denounces polytheism, idol worship; repudiates the Vedas, avataras, karma and reincarnation, caste and more.
1831-91: Lifetime of Russian mystic Madame H.P. Blavatsky, founder of Theosophical Society in 1875, bringing aspects of psychism, Buddhism and Hinduism to the West.
1831: British Christians defeat Ranjit Singh's forces at Balakot, in Sikh attempt to establish a homeland in N.W. India.
1833: Slavery is abolished in British Commonwealth countries, giving impetus to abolitionists in United States.
1835: Civil service jobs in India are opened to Indians.
1835: Macaulay's Minute furthers Western education in India. English is made official government and court language.
1835: Mauritius receives 19,000 immigrant indentured laborers from India. Last ship carrying workers arrives in 1922.
1836-86: Lifetime of Shri Ramakrishna, God-intoxicated Bengali Shakta saint, guru of Swami Vivekananda. He exemplifies the bhakti dimension of Shakta Universalism.
1837: Britain formalizes emigration of Indian indentured laborers to supply cheap labor under a system more morally acceptable to British Christian society than slavery, illegal in the British Empire since 1833.
1837: Kali-worshiping Thugees are suppressed by British.
1838: British Guyana receives its first 250 Indian laborers.
1838-84: Lifetime of Keshab Chandra Sen, Hindu reformer who founds Brahma Samaj of India, a radical offshoot of the Adi Brahmo Samaj of Ram Mohan Roy.
1840-1915: Lifetime of Satguru Chellappaswami of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, initiated at age 19 by Siddha Kadaitswami as next satguru in the Nandinatha Sampradaya's Kailasa Parampara.
1840: Joseph de Goubineau (1816-1882), French scholar, writes The Inequality of Human Races. Proclaims the "Aryan race" superior to other great strains and lays down the aristocratic class-doctrine of Aryanism that later provides the basis for Adolf Hitler's Aryan racism.
1842-1901: Life of Eknath Ranade, founder of Prarthana Samaj. His social-reform thinking inspires Gokhale and Gandhi.
1843: British conquer the Sind region (present-day Pakistan).
1845: Trinidad receives its first 197 Indian immigrant laborers.
1846: British forcibly separate Kashmir from the Sikhs and sell it to the Maharaja of Jammu for pounds1,000,000.
1849: Sikh army is defeated by the British at Amritsar.
1850: First English translation of the Rig Veda by H.H. Wilson, first holder of Oxford's Boden Chair, founded "to promote the translation of the Scriptures into English, so as to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion."
1851: Sir M. Monier-Williams (1819-99) publishes English-Sanskrit Dictionary. His completed Sanskrit-English Dictionary is released in 1899 after three decades of work.
1853-1920: Lifetime of Shri Sharada Devi, wife of Shri Ramakrishna.
1853: Max Muller (1823-1900), German Christian philologist and Orientalist, advocates the term Aryan to name a hypothetical primitive people of Central Asia, the common ancestors of Hindus, Persians and Greeks. Muller speculates that this "Aryan race" divided and marched west to Europe and east to India and China around 1500 bce. Their language, Muller contends, developed into Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, etc., and all ancient civilizations descended from this Aryan race.
1856: Catholic missionary Bishop Caldwell coins the term Dravidian to refer to South Indian Caucasian peoples.
1857: First Indian Revolution, called the Sepoy Mutiny, ends in a few months with the fall of Delhi and Lucknow.
1858: India has 200 miles of railroad track. By 1869 5,000 miles of steel track have been completed by British railroad companies. In 1900, total track is 25,000 miles, and by World War I, 35,000 miles. By 1970, at 62,136 miles, it has become the world's greatest train system. Unfortunately, this development depletes India's forest lands.
1859: Charles Darwin, releases controversial book, The Origin of Species, propounding his "natural selection" theory of evolution, laying the foundations of modern biology.
1860: S.S. Truro and S.S. Belvedere dock in Durban, S. Africa, carrying first indentured servants (from Madras and Calcutta) to work sugar plantations. With contracts of five years and up, thousands emigrate over next 51 years.
1861: American Civil War begins in Charleston, S. Carolina.
1861-1941: Lifetime of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
1863-1902: Life of Swami Vivekananda, dynamic renaissance missionary to West and catalyst of Hindu revival in India.
1869-1948: Lifetime of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian nationalist and Hindu political activist who develops the strategy of nonviolent disobedience that forces Christian Great Britain to grant independence to India (1947).
1870: Papal doctrine of infallibility is asserted by the Vatican.
1872-1964: Lifetime of Satguru Yogaswami, Natha renaissance sage of Sri Lanka, Chellappaswami's successor in the Kailasa Parampara of the Nandinatha Sampradaya.
1872-1950: Life of Shri Aurobindo Ghosh, Bengali Indian nationalist and renaissance yoga philosopher. His 30-volume work discusses the "superman," the Divinely transformed individual soul. Withdraws from the world in 1910 and founds international ashram in Pondicherry.
1873-1906: Lifetime of Swami Rama Tirtha, who lectures throughout Japan and America spreading "practical Vedanta."
1875: Madame Blavatsky founds Theosophical Society in New York, later headquartered at Adyar, Madras, where Annie Besant, president (1907-1933), helps revitalize Hinduism with metaphysical defense of its principles.
1876: British Queen Victoria (1819-1901), head of Church of England, is proclaimed Empress of India (1876-1901).
1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.
1876-1990: Max Muller, pioneer of comparative religion as a scholarly discipline, publishes 50-volume Sacred Books of the East, English translations of Indian-Oriental scriptures.
1877-1947: Lifetime of Sri Lanka's Ananda Coomaraswamy, foremost interpreter of Indian art and culture to the West.
1879: Incandescent lamp is invented by Thomas Edison (1847-1931). The american inventor patents more than a thousand inventions, among them the microphone (1877) and the phonograph (1878). In New York (1881-82) he installs the world's first central electric power plant.
1879: The "Leonidas," first emigrant ship to Fiji, adds 498 Indian indentured laborers to the nearly 340,000 already working in other British Empire colonies.
1879-1966: Lifetime of Sadhu T.L. Vaswani, altruistic Sindhi poet and servant of God, founds several Hindu missions in India and seven Mira Educational Institutions.
1879-1950: Lifetime of Shri Ramana Maharshi, Hindu Advaita renunciate renaissance saint of Tiruvannamalai, South India.
1882-1927: Lifetime of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Indian-born Muslim mystic, instrumental in bringing Sufism to the West.
1884-1963: Lifetime of Swami Ramdas, known as "Papa," Indian saint and devotee of Lord Rama.
1885: A group of middle-class intellectuals in India, some of them British, found the Indian National Congress to be a voice of Indian opinion to the British government. This was the origin of the later Congress Party.
1885: First automobile powered by an internal combustion engine is produced by Karl Benz in Mannheim, Germany. Henry Ford makes his first car in 1893 in the US and later invents assembly line production.
1886: Rene Guenon is born, first European philosopher to become a Vedantin, says biographer Robin Waterfield.
1887-1963: Life of Swami Sivananda, Hindu universalist renaissance guru, author of 200 books, founder of Divine Life Society, with 400 branches worldwide in present day.
1888: Max Muller, revising his stance, writes, "Aryan, in scientific language, is utterly inapplicable to race. If I say Aryas, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who spoke the Aryan language."
1888-1975: Lifetime of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, renowned Tamil panentheist, renaissance philosopher, eminent writer; free India's first vice-president and second president.
1891: Maha Bodhi Society, an organization to encourage Buddhist studies in India and abroad, is founded in Sri Lanka by Buddhist monk Anagarika Dharmapala.
1893: Swami Vivekananda represents Hinduism at Chicago's Parliament of the World's Religions, first ever interfaith gathering, dramatically enlightening Western opinion as to the profundity of Hindu philosophy and culture.
1893-1952: Life of Paramahamsa Yogananda, universalist Hindu, renaissance founder of Self Realization Fellowship (1925) in US, author of famed Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), popular book globalizing India's spiritual traditions.
1894: Gandhi drafts first petition protesting the indentured servant system. Less than six months later, British announce the halt of indentured emigration from India.
1894-1994: Lifetime of Swami Chandrashekarendra, venerated Shankaracharya saint of Kanchi monastery in South India.
1894-1969: Life of Meher Baba of Poona, silent sage whose mystical teachings stress love, self-inquiry and God consciousness.
1896-1982: Lifetime of Anandamayi Ma, God-intoxicated yogini and mystic Bengali saint. Her spirit lives on in devotees.
1896: Nationalist leader, Marathi scholar Bal Bangadhar Tilak (1857-1920) initiates Ganesha Visarjana and Sivaji festivals to fan Indian nationalism. He is first to demand complete independence, Purna Svaraj, from Britain.
1896-1977: Lifetime of Vaishnava Hindu renaissance activist Bhaktivedanta Swami Pradhupada. Founds Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in US in 1966. Dies 11 years later.
1896: American humorist Mark Twain writes Following the Equator, describing his three-month stay in India, during voyage to Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, South Africa and England. According to him and his critics, it is one of his finest works.
1897: Swami Vivekananda founds Ramakrishna Mission.
1898-1907: Cholera epidemic claims 370,000 lives in India.
1900: World population is 1.6 billion. India population is 290 million: 17.8% of world.
1900: India's tea exports to Britain reach 137 million pounds.
1900-77: Uday Shankar of Udaipur, dancer and choreographer, adapts Western theatrical techniques to Hindu dance, popularizing his ballet in India, Europe and the US.
1905: Lord Curzon, arrogant British Viceroy of India, resigns.
1905: Sage Yogaswami, age 33, is initiated by Chellappaswami at Nallur, Sri Lanka; later becomes the next preceptor in the Nandinatha Sampradaya's Kailasa Parampara.
1906: Muslim League political party is formed in India.
1906: Dutch Christians overtake Bali after Puputan massacres in which Hindu Balinese royal families are murdered.
1908-82: Lifetime of Swami Muktananda, global Kashmir Saiva renaissance satguru and founder of Siddha Yoga Dham.
1909-69: Lifetime of Dada Lekhraj (1909-1969), Hindu renaissance founder of Brahma Kumaris, Saivite social reform movement stressing meditation and world peace.
1909: Gandhi and assistant Maganlal agitate for better working conditions and abolition of indentured servitude in S. Africa. Maganlal continues Gandhi's work in Fiji.
1912: Anti-Indian racial riots on the US West Coast expel large Hindu immigrant population.
1913: New law prohibits Indian immigration to S. Africa, primarily in answer to white colonists' alarm at competition of Indian merchants and expired labor contracts.
1914: US government excludes Indian citizens from immigration. Restriction stands until 1965.
1914: Austria's Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated by Christian Serb nationalists. Chain reaction leads to W.W. I.
1914: Swami Satchidananda is born, founder of Integral Yoga Institute and Light of Truth Universal Shrine in the US.
1917: Communists under Lenin seize power in Russia, 1/6th of the Earth's land mass, following the Bolshevik Revolution.
1917: Last Hindu Indian indentured laborers are brought to British Christian colonies of Fiji and Trinidad.
1917-93: Life of Swami Chinmayananda, Vedantist writer, lecturer, Hindu renaissance founder of Chinmaya Mission and a co-founder of the Vishva Hindu Parishad.
1918: World War I ends. Death toll is estimated at ten million.
1918: Spanish Influenza epidemic kills 12.5 million in India, 21.6 million worldwide.
1918: Shirdi Sai Baba, saint to both Hindus and Muslims, dies at approximately age 70.
1919: Brigadier Dyer orders Gurkha troops to shoot unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar, killing 379. Massacre convinces Gandhi that India must demand full independence from oppressive British Christian rule.
1920: Gandhi formulates the satyagraha, "firmness in truth," strategy of noncooperation and nonviolence against India's Christian British rulers. Later resolves to wear only dothi to preserve homespun cotton and simplicity.
1920: System of indentured servitude is abolished by India, following grassroots agitation by Mahatma Gandhi.
1920: Ravi Shankar is born in Varanasi, sitar master, composer and founder of National Orchestra of India, he inspires Western appreciation of Indian music.
1922: Pramukh Swami is born, renaissance traditionalist Hindu, head of Bochasanwasi Swaminarayan Sanstha Sangh.
1922: Tagore's school at Shantineketan (founded 1901) is made into Vishva Bharati Univ. Becomes national Univ., 1951.
1923: US law excludes citizens of India from naturalization.
1924: Sir John Marshall (1876-1958) discovers relics of the Indus Valley Hindu civilization. Begins large-scale excavations.
1925: K.V. Hedgewar (1890-1949) founds Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist movement.
1926: Satya Sai Baba is born, Hindu universalist renaissance charismatic guru, educationalist, worker of miracles.
1927: Sivaya Subramuniyaswami is born, present-day satguru in the Nandinatha Sampradaya's Kailasa Parampara.
1927: Maharashtra bars tradition of dedicating girls to temples as Devadasis, ritual dancers. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa soon follow suit; 20 years later, Tamil Nadu bans devotional dancing and singing by women in its thousands of temples and in all Hindu ceremonies.
1927 & 34: Indians permitted to sit as jurors and court magistrates.
1928: Hindu leader Jawaharlal Nehru drafts plan for a free India; becomes president of Congress Party in 1929.
1929: Chellachiamman, woman saint of Sri Lanka, dies. She was mentor to Sage Yogaswami and Kandiah Chettiar.
1931: Shri Chinmoy is born in Bengal, yogi, artist, self-transcendence master and United Nations peace ambassador.
1931: 2.5 million Indians reside overseas; largest communities are in Sri Lanka, Malaya, Mauritius and S. Africa.
1931: Dr. Karan Singh is born, son and heir apparent of Kashmir's last Maharaja; becomes parliamentarian, Indian ambassador to the US and global Hindu spokesman.
1934: Paul Brunton's instantly popular A Search in Secret India makes known to the West such illumined holy men as Shri Chandrashekharendra and Ramana Maharshi.
1936-1991: Lifetime of Shrimati Rukmini Devi, founder of Kalakshetra-a school of Hindu classical music, dance, theatrical arts, painting and handicrafts-in Madras.
1938: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is founded in Bombay by K.M. Munshi to conserve, develop and diffuse Indian culture.
1939: Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), manifesto of Nazism, published 1925, sells 5 million copies in 11 languages. It reveals his racist Aryan, anti-Semitic ideology, strategy of revenge and Socialist rise to power.
1939: World War II begins September 3, as France and Britain declare war on Germany after Germany invades Poland.
1939: Maria Montessori (1870-1952), first Italian female physician and "discoverer of the child," spends nine years in India teaching her kindergarten method and studying Hinduism through the Theosophical Society in Adyar.
1939: Mohammed Ali Jinnah calls for a separate Muslim state.
1941: First US chair of Sanskrit and Indology established at Yale Univ.; American Oriental Society founded in 1942.
1942: At sites along the lost Sarasvati River in Rajasthan, archeologist Sir Aurel Stein finds shards with incised characters identical to those on Indus Valley seals.
1945: Germany surrenders to Allied forces. Ghastly concentration camps that killed 6 million Jews are discovered.
1945: US drops atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan, ending World War II. Total war dead is 60 million.
1945: United Nations founded by 4 Allied nations and China to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."
1947: India gains independence from Britain August 15. Pakistan emerges as a separate Islamic nation, and 600,000 die in clashes during subsequent population exchange of 14 million people between the two new countries.
1948: Britain grants colony of Sri Lanka Dominion status and self-government under Commonwealth jurisdiction.
1948: Establishment of Sarva Seva Sangh, Gandhian movement for new social order (Sarvodaya).
1948: Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated January 30th by Nathuram Godse, 35, editor-publisher of a Hindu Mahasabha weekly in Poona, in retaliation for Gandhi's concessions to Muslim demands and agreeing to partition 27% of India to create the new Islamic nation of Pakistan.
1949: Sri Lanka's Sage Yogaswami initiates Sivaya Subramuniyaswami as his successor in Nandinatha Sampradaya's Kailasa Parampara. Subramuniyaswami founds Saiva Siddhanta Church and Yoga Order the same year.
1949: India's new constitution, authored chiefly by B.R. Ambedkar, declares there shall be no "discrimination" against any citizen on the grounds of caste, jati, and that the practice of "untouchability" is abolished.
1950: Wartime jobs in West, taking women out of home, have led to weakened family, delinquency, cultural breakdown.
1950: India is declared a secular republic. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-1964) is determined to abolish casteism and industrialize the nation. Constitution makes Hindi official national language; English to continue for 15 years; 14 major state languages are recognized.
1951: India's Bharatiya Janata Sangh (BJP) party is founded.
1955-6: Indian government enacts social reforms on Hindu marriage, succession, guardianship, adoption, etc.
1950-60s Tours of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan lead to worldwide popularization of Indian music.
1955: Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist formulator of the relativity theory dies. He declared Lord Siva Nataraja best metaphor for the workings of the universe.
1956: Indian government reorganizes states according to linguistic principles and inaugurates second Five-Year Plan.
1956: Swami Satchidananda makes first visit to America.
1957: Sivaya Subramuniyaswami founds Himalayan Academy and opens US's first Hindu temple, in San Francisco.
1959: Dalai Lama flees Tibet and finds refuge in North India as China invades his Buddhist nation.
1959: The transistor makes computers smaller and faster than prototypes like the 51-foot-long, 8-foot high Mark I, containing I-million parts and 500 miles of wire, invented for the US Navy in 1944 by IBM's Howard Aiken. From the 1960s onward, integrated circuitry and microprocessors will take computers-descendants of the 5,000-year-old Oriental abacus-to unimaginable levels to revolutionize Earth's technology and society.
1960: Since 1930, 5% of immigrants to US have been Asians, while European immigrants have constituted 58%.
1960: Border war with China shakes India's nonaligned policy.
1961: India forcibly reclaims Goa, Damao and Diu from the Portuguese. Goa became a state of India in 1987.
1963: US President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
1963: Hallucinogenic drug culture arises in US. Hindu gurus decry the false promise and predict "a chemical chaos."
1964: India's Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu religious nationalist movement, is founded to counter secularism.
1964: Rock group, the Beatles, practice Transcendental Meditation (TM), bringing fame to Maharshi Mahesh Yogi.
1965: US immigration cancels racial qualifications and restores naturalization rights. Welcomes 170,000 Asians yearly.
1966: J. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, becomes Prime Minister of India, world's largest democracy, succeeding L. B. Shastri who took office after Nehru's death in 1964.
1968: US Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King is assassinated.
1969: US astronaut Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon.
1970: Kauai Aadheenam, Hindu monastery, site of Kadavul Hindu Temple, Saiva Siddhanta Church headquarters, San Marga Sanctuary and editorial offices of Hinduism Today is founded February 5 on Hawaii's Garden Island.
1971: Rebellion in East Pakistan (formerly Bengal). Ten million Bengalis, mainly Hindus, flee to India. Indo-Pak border clashes escalate to war. India defeats West Pakistan. E. Pakistan becomes independent Bangladesh.
1972: A Historical Atlas of South Asia is produced by Joseph E. Schwartzberg, Siva G. Bajpai, Raj B. Mathur, et al.
1972: Muslim dictator Idi Amin expels Indians from Uganda.
1973: Neem Karoli Baba, Hindu mystic and siddha, dies.
1974: India detonates a "nuclear device."
1974: Watergate scandal. US President Nixon resigns.
1975: Netherlands gives independence to Dutch Guyana, which becomes Suriname; one third of Hindus (descendants of Indian plantation workers) emigrate to Netherlands for better social and economic conditions.
1977: One hundred thousand Tamil Hindu tea-pickers expatriated from Sri Lanka are shipped to Madras, South India.
1979: Sivaya Subramuniyaswami founds Hinduism Today international newspaper to promote Hindu solidarity.
1980: Grand South Indian counterpart to Kumbha Mela of Prayag, the Mahamagham festival, held every 12 years in Kumbhakonam, on the river Kaveri, two million attend.
1981: India has one-half world's cattle: 8 cows for every 10 Indians.
1981: Deadly AIDS disease is conclusively identified.
1981: First bharata natyam dance in a temple since 1947 Christian-British ban on Devadasis is arranged by Sivaya Subramuniyaswami at Chidambaram; 100,000 attend.
1983: Violence between Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Singhalese in Sri Lanka marks beginning of Tamil rebellion by Tiger freedom fighters demanding an independent nation called Eelam. Prolonged civil war results.
1984: Balasarasvati, eminent classical Karnatic singer and bharata natyam dancer of worldwide acclaim, dies.
1984: Since 1980, Asians have made up 48% of immigrants to the US, with the European portion shrinking to 12%.
1984: Indian soldiers under orders from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi storm Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar to crush rebellion. She is assassinated this year by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation. Her son Rajiv takes office.
1986: Swami Satchidananda dedicates Light of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS) at Yogaville in Virginia, USA.
1986: Jiddha Krishnamurti, anti-guru guru, semi-existentialist philosophical Indian lecturer and author, dies.
1986: World Religious Parliament in New Delhi bestows the title Jagadacharya, "world teacher," on five spiritual leaders outside India: Swami Chinmayananda of Chinmaya Mission (Bombay, India); Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami of Saiva Siddhanta Church and Himalayan Academy (Hawaii-California, USA); Yogiraj Amrit Desai of Kripalu Yoga Center (New York, USA); Pandit Tej Ramji Sharma of Nepali Baba (Kathmandu, Nepal); Swami Jagpurnadas Maharaj (Port Louis, Mauritius).
1987: Colonel S. Rabuka, a Methodist, leads coup deposing Fiji's Indian-dominated government and instituting military rule. July, 1990, constitution guarantees political majority to ethnic (mostly Christian) Fijians.
1988: General Ershad declares Islam state religion of Bangladesh, outraging 12-million (11%) Hindu population.
1988: US allows annual influx of 270,000 Asian immigrants.
1988: First Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival is held at Oxford University, England. Hindus discuss international cooperation with 100 religious leaders and 100 parliamentarians.
1989: Christian missionaries are spending US%165 million per year to convert Hindus.
1990: The Berlin Wall is taken down February 12. Germany is reunited over the next year. Warsaw Pact is dissolved.
1990: Under its new democratic constitution, Nepal remains the world's only Hindu country.
1990: Hindus flee Muslim persecution in Kashmir Valley.
1990: Foundation stones are laid in Ayodhya for new temple at the birthplace of Lord Rama, as Hindu nationalism rises.
1990: Vatican condemns Eastern mysticism as false doctrine in letter by Cardinal Ratzinger approved by Pope Paul II, to purge Catholic monasteries, convents and clergy of involvement in Eastern meditation, yoga and Zen.
1990: Second Global Forum of Spiritual Leaders and Parliamentarians for Human Survival, in Moscow, cosponsored by Supreme Soviet, gives stage for Hindu thinking. Shringeri sannyasin Swami Paramananda Bharati concludes Forum with Vedic peace prayer in Kremlin Hall, leading 2,500 world leaders in chanting Aum three times.
1990: Communist leadership of USSR collapses, to be replaced by 12 independent democratic nations.
1991: Hindu Renaissance Award is founded by Hinduism Today and declares Swami Paramananda Bharati of Shringeri Matha "1990 Hindu of the Year."
1991: Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in Tamil Nadu in May. India blames Sri Lankan Tamil separatists.
1991: Indian tribals, adivasis, are 45 million strong.
1991: In Bangalore, India, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami authorizes renowned architect V. Ganapati Sthapati to begin carving the Chola-style, white-granite, moksha Iraivan Temple in a project guided by Shri Shri Trichy Swami, Shri Shri Balagangadaranathaswami and Shri Sivapuriswami. Shipped to Hawaii's Garden Island of Kauai and erected on San Marga, Iraivan will be the Western Hemisphere's first all-stone Agamic temple.The world's largest single-pointed, six-sided crystal (700 lbs.), known as the Earthkeeper, will be enshrined as its Sivalinga.
1992: Swami Chidananda Saraswati, spiritual head of Parmarth Niketan Trust, with 26 ashramas, is named Hinduism Today's 1991 Hindu of the Year for founding historic Encyclopedia of Hinduism Indian Heritage project.
1992: World population is 5.2 billion; 17% or 895 million, live in India. Of these, 85%, or 760 million, are Hindu.
1992: Third Global Forum of Spiritual Leaders and Parliamentarians for Human Survival meets in Rio de Janeiro in conjunction with Earth Summit (UNCED). Hindu views of nature, environment and traditional values help inform the 70,000 delegates planning global future.
1992: Hindu radicals demolish Babri Masjid built in 1548 on Rama's birthplace in Ayodhya by Muslim conqueror Babar after he destroyed a Hindu temple marking the site. The monument was a central icon of Hindu resentment toward Muslim destruction of 60,000 temples.
1993: Fourth Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival meets in Kyoto, Japan. Green Cross is founded for environmental protection.
1993: Swami Chinmayananda is named 1992 Hindu of the Year, for lifetime of dynamic service to Sanatana Dharma worldwide-attains mahasamadhi July 26, at age 77.
1993: Swami Brahmananda Sarasvati, renowned yoga scholar, and Swami Vishnu-devananda, author of world's most popular manual on hatha yoga, reach parinirvana.
1993: Chicago's historic centenary Parliament of the World's Religions convenes in September. Presidents' Assembly, a core group of 25 men and women representing the world's faiths, is formed to perpetuate Parliament goals.
1994: Harvard University research identifies over 800 Hindu temples open for worship in the United States.
1994: Mata Amritanandamayi (1953-) charismatic woman saint of Kerala, is named 1993 Hindu of the Year.
1994: All India pays homage to Kanchi's beloved peripatetic tapasvin sage, Shri la Shri Shankaracharya Chandrashekharendra, who passes away January 7, during his 100th year.
1994: Hindu Heritage Endowment, first Hindu international trust, founded by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.
2000: World population is 6.2 billion. India population is 1.2 billion: 20% of world (projection by World Watch).
2050: British historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) predicted that at the close of the 20th century the world would still be dominated by the West, but during the 21st century India will conquer her conquerors, preempting the place formerly held by technology. Religion worldwide will be restored to its earlier importance, and the center of world happenings will wander back from the shores of the Atlantic to the East where civilization originated.
2094: Bharat (formerly India) is world's most populous nation. Sanatana Dharma, finding new expressions through interactive electronic tools, guides humankind's future. Time flows on. Live long and prosper.
Aum. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. Aum.